Newsletter: 18/12/2009

Office news

Again this is the first newsletter for some time, sorry about that. The Fastbase office will be open over the Christmas - New Year period, except for the statutory holidays. We will be at reduced capacity so please keep enquiries to urgent questions or issues.

Nathan has passed his exams, he now is the proud owner of a BA in computing. I have been involved with aeronautical pursuits lately. Our office plants survive despite our best attempts, one is dressed up ready for Christmas.

We've been very busy the last several months, and so have many of you I understand, despite the financial climate. Here's wishing things will get better. Have a good Christmas,

Russell Bell

Minimum Gross Profit per Inventory type

Under Utilities - Types - Inventory - (choose a type or create a new one) - Control Details tab, there's a new field "Minimum GP %". This value is checked while receipting goods - if a part's GP% falls below the minimum, the user is offered the option of maintaining the part to update the sell price. By default there is no minimum GP% so unless you set the minimum GP% on a Inventory Type, no check is done.

Website search

We have improved the product search facility within some of our customer websites. Now if you enter more than one keyword (separated by spaces) into the search field, the search will find products matching all of the keywords, where each keyword appears anywhere in any of the product description, number, name fields etc. This makes the search somewhat more intuitive. If you want this applied to your website let us know.

Zero-value invoices

Under Processing - Print Invoices & Credits, you can now select "No" for "Print zero-value invoices ?". When the invoices are printed, no invoice that has a total amount of zero will be printed or emailed.

New CSV format for exporting Purchase Orders

We have added support to Fastbase to export Purchase Orders in a new (more detailed) CSV format.The previous Exported CSV format only contained the Part number, Quantity Ordered and Price for each line item. This format was designed for importing line items into an accounting package. The new format contains order details (including Order No, Date, Delivery Details, Supplier Details), more line item details (including the part Description, Weight and Cubic info, line item totals and order totals) and a Footer (which has Delivery Instructions and the Authorised By). The new format is designed for importing a Purchase Order into a spreadsheet application (e.g. MS Excel).

This new format is made available through a setup option, if you are interested or would like more information give us a call.

Barcode scanning on goods receipts

We've changed Goods Receipt entry so you can now scan product barcodes rather than manually entering part numbers. If you are using the Pack tab to set pack quantity information for products, scanning a barcode can also set the quantity received, per the pack inner or outer quantities. If you want to know more about this give us a call. The scanning feature can display the goods receipts lines in different colours depending on whether the quantity scanned is an underscan or overscan - this is controlled by a setup option, let us know if you want this also.

Parts Price Import - importing of Product pack details

Under Maintenance - Misc - Products - Import Parts Price File - Start - (select a file), there used to be seven generic selection fields, where the user selects a field (Part Number, Description etc.) from a drop-down list and a column number (also from a drop-down list). This layout has been modified to make it clearer, and to make it similar to the part enquiry/maintenance screens. As well as being spread over three tabs, each attribute of a part that can be imported has it's own select field for assigning a column from the import file. You can now import pack details and product type.

Web User Maintenance Security Levels

We have changed the user security settings required for maintaining Web Users in Fastbase.

Cubic volume and weight on purchase orders

We've changed Purchase Order entry so a running total of the cubic volume and weight of a purchase order can be displayed. This can be useful if you want to fill a shipping container close to capacity, for example. To use this feature you need to have first set the Pack Dimensions for each product, under the Product Maintenance - Pack tab. This feature is enabled by a setup option, let us know if you want this. The Cubic and Weight totals of a purchase order can also be printed on the purchase order stationery - contact us if you're interested.

Highlight backorders supplied direct to the customer

The list of active sales orders (Order Entry - Maintain Sales Order) has items on backorder displayed in green. Now any orders with backorders that are being supplied from a drop-shipment purchase order can be displayed in orange. This feature is made available via a setup option, contact us for more details.

Forward Dated Invoices

Customer Invoice transactions can now be dated further in the future.

Previously Fastbase would not allow a new invoice to be future-dated by more than two months. We have changed this so that the limit is now configurable. We can also configure a "warning" data limit that can be over-ridden. By default the limit is still two months.

Plus key

We have added a feature to transaction line item entry. Now you can use the "+" key whenever you would normally click the "Save" button (or type Alt-S) to save a line item. This works on Invoices, Credits, Quotes, Sales Orders etc. This feature is enabled by a setup option, let us know if you want this.

Customer receipt reference

We've added a feature so Fastbase can check that any Reference entered for a customer receipt has not already been used. The feature is enabled by a setup option, if you're interested let us know and we'll enable it for you.

Ten price levels

Fastbase supports five price levels for parts, you set these up under Utilities - Modules - Inventory. Although it is possible to set up a price level of any number between one and ten, only levels 1 - 5 are fully supported in all areas of Fastbase. We have changed Fastbase to support levels 1 - 10 for the Customer Default Price Levels, and also when calculating prices on Sales Orders and Invoices.

Customer Credits - distinct return-branch per line item

When entering or maintaining a line item on a credit note, there's a new field, "Return Branch". Use this if credited goods are being returned to more than one branch.

Product Listing report

We've added a new Branch option to the product listing report, under More Options. You can now report the Available and/or On-Hand quantities for a selected branch. By default all branches are reported.

File - Printers

The File - Printers menu option is where you can set the default printer for different types of stationary (invoices, statements, packing slips etc). Fastbase stores these selections in a file on your PC, by default this is C:\fastbase.gdi. Sometimes Windows doesn't permit a user to write to the C drive. These issues are especially prevalent with Windows Vista. We've changed the File - Printers screen to make it clearer what's going on. This is mostly of interest if you're setting Fastbase up on a new computer.

Consolidated Invoicing

There is a new choice (M - Monthly Consolidated) for the 'Print Invoice' option under the Preferences tab of Customer Maintenance. If a customer has the new option selected, they will get a monthly consolidated invoice.

To add an invoiced to a customers consolidated invoice the invoice must be created via Order Entry - Maintain Sales Order - Options - Create Invoice.

All consolidated invoices for a given month are put in a batch titled "Consolidated Invoices". The batch is dated the last day of the month and the status of the batch is closed. You can print consolidated invoices via transaction enquiry or Processing - Print Invoices & Credits. This option is made available via a setup option, contact us for more details.

Newsletters

Select from the following list of newsletters that have been sent out.

28/11/2013 Office News, Quoting for items that aren't recorded as parts in Fastbase, Stream-lined entry of new part assembly transactions, Sorting of customer notes on the appointments screen, Maintaining a customer note - "Complete" button save and exit